Do you have scratched CD’s laying around that just WONT work? Well i came along this and thought i would share it.
” Scratched CD’s? No Problem!
We’ve all been there, bought a pre-owned game, put it excitedly into the console, then shouted “OMFGz0rWTF!?!?” as the console wouldn’t recognize the game. Or perhaps you have a CD which contains important data, and M$ Windoze gives you a “Cyclic Redundancy Check” error (fancy way of saying ‘Your disc is bloody SCRATCHED’).
Whatever your problem is, it’s caused by the same thing: A scratch. A scratched CD or DVD is just annoying!
So I took it upon myself to perform an experiment, to determine the very best way of dealing with a scratched disc. The limit I set myself, though, was that whatever I did it with must be somewhere in my house, and can’t take longer than 5 minutes, including waiting time for things to dry, etc.
I thought of three main ways to cope with scratches:
- Use an oily substance, or a gel, to fill in the scratch so that the laser goes straight through. This is the easiest option of the three.
- Use a mild abrasive to round the edges of the scratches so that the laser doesn’t get scattered as much. This is probably the most feasible option of the three.
- Somehow take off a thin layer of plastic, removing the scratches altogether. This is the hardest, and probably impossible in 5 minutes with household items.
How a CD works:
I burnt 5 CDs with 6 songs on them:
- Kings of Leon – Razz
- Kings of Leon – Soft
- The Libertines – What Katie Did
- Kings of Leon – The Bucket
- Kings of Leon – Velvet Snow
- Kings of Leon – Taper Jean Girl
I then proceeded to scratch a few of the CDs with a pair of scissors, nothing deep, just enough to make the XBox in which I was playing them get annoyed.
The first thing I tried was plain old water, I know, sounds stupid… But the day before, I bought a game, which was scratched (not dirty, scratched). The first thing I tried was water, which I rubbed in gently, so that it stayed in the scratches, it then worked perfectly.
Next I had to rub it. The only way to rub something off a CD, is with a lint free cloth, going out in spokes from the centre.
Ok, so that didn’t work too well on my test discs… Next up was, deodorant. I decided to use this, because it contained something oily (isopropyl myristate) which was dissolved in something volatile (denatured alcohol, propane, butane, isobutane, basically loads of hydrocarbons). So when I sprayed it on, I was hoping for the alcohols to evaporate while the isopropyl myristate separated into isopropyl and myristic acid to become oily and viscous, and stay in the cracks.
I rubbed it in gently, just to get it into the cracks, but not to remove it, and then let it sit for two minutes. It evaporated, and when held against the light, the “rainbows” got scattered less. It looked hopeful. But it didn’t work.
Ok, next up is something I use to clean the fretboard on my guitar, Lem-oil. It’s viscous and oily, and smells of lemon. I sprayed it on and this time had to rub slightly more vigourously, as it wasn’t volatile enough to fit in with my 5 minute limit.
I rubbed it in, and it sort of worked. The XBox loaded the CD, and played it, but it was really crackly and noisy. So it kind of worked, but Caleb sounded pissed off and sort of like a monster.
Next I tried the method that a lot of people talk about: the toothpaste method. Toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and using it you should be able to round off the edges on the scratches. This method looked like it would work if I carried on, as the light was getting less scattered by the scratches, but I set myself a strict 5 minute time limit. To apply the toothpaste take the tiniest bit on the tip of your finger, and without touching the CD with your finger its self, apply the toothpaste to only the scratched area (and just around it). Now put it under the tap and dribble water on it, so that the toothpaste goes sort of mushy. Now tilt the CD over a sink very gently so that the water runs off, but the toothpaste stays. Now, like all the other methods, rub it in with a lint free cloth, but this time you really need to go to town, as you are actually trying to round off the scratches. This is my CD after the toothpaste was applied (the light makes it look really thick, but it isn’t, and the light also makes some of the dripping water look like toothpaste):
That didn’t work either. In a crazy futile attempt, I tried mixing the above four together:
That contained water, deodorant, lem oil and toothpaste. Needless to say it didn’t work.
Next I tried a mixture of 3 parts water to one part olive oil (I know they don’t mix, but shake!) That almost worked. I mean that the light wasn’t scattered when I held it against the light, but my XBox couldn’t read it, probably because it was yellow. This made me think that the oily/gel idea was the best way to go. I looked around the bathroom cupboard for somthing similar, and found this:
Yes, hair gel, and guess what… It worked!
I applied it in much the same way as the toothpaste, except I didn’t dribble water on it. I rubbed it first. Even though I applied it to one area, it ended up evenly spread around the whole disc. I then dribbled water on to loosen it up so I could rub the excess off.
So, the secret to scratch free CDs is……
Hair Gel! “
